(TNND) — The U.S. government is casting a net across 30 ZIP codes in California and Texas to catch cash transactions connected to Mexican cartels.

The Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a temporary, geographically targeted order this week that requires all "money services businesses" to notify the government of cash transactions that are at least $200.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions must report cash transactions over $10,000 or when they believe there’s suspicious activity in order to stop money laundering, tax evasion or other crimes.

The new FinCEN order applies to only a slice of the financial services sector.

While the order temporarily lowers the threshold from $10,000 to just $200, it applies to just the 30 counties in two border states. And banks are not included within the definition of money services businesses.

The order applies to check cashers and businesses that exchange foreign currency.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a news release that the order "underscores our deep concern with the significant risk to the U.S. financial system of the cartels, drug traffickers, and other criminal actors along the Southwest border."

FinCEN said it’s part of a whole-of-government approach to combatting cartels and stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S.

President Donald Trump issued an order to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which the Treasury said will help it deny cartel operatives access to the U.S. financial system.

The National Sheriffs' Association applauded FinCEN’s effort to disrupt cartel activity.

“That's literally something we've been waiting for the government to do,” said Sheriff Kieran Donahue of Canyon County, Idaho, who also serves as NSA president.

“This is critical, because these guys, they operate with impunity on the financial side of this thing, whether you want to call it money laundering or money transfer,” Donahue continued.

But Nicholas Anthony, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, criticized the move as an expansion of “financial surveillance” on unsuspecting Americans.

Anthony acknowledged it’s hard to fight organized crime.

“It is very difficult, but we can't just sacrifice everything in that pursuit,” he said.

FinCEN’s order goes into effect after 30 days and remains in effect for 179 days.

The order applies to the following ZIP codes across seven counties in California and Texas:

• Imperial County, California: 92231, 92249, 92281, 92283
• San Diego County, California: 91910, 92101, 92113, 92117, 92126, 92154, 92173
• Cameron County, Texas: 78520, 78521
• El Paso County, Texas: 79901, 79902, 79903, 79905, 79907, 79935
• Hidalgo County, Texas: 78503, 78557, 78572, 78577, 78596
• Maverick County, Texas: 78852
• Webb County, Texas: 78040, 78041, 78043, 78045, 78046

Donahue said the 30-day delay in implementation of the order is a drawback, in that it’ll give cartels a head start in finding ways to avoid detection.

Anthony, however, said the geographic targeting and temporary nature of the order are positives.

“I'll give them some credit in that they did not apply this to the entire country,” Anthony said.

Anthony said Cato research hasn’t found the reporting process under the Bank Secrecy Act to be very effective at catching criminals. And he doesn’t think this more limited order with the lower-dollar threshold will be more successful.

Anthony said the latest annual figures FinCEN provided to Cato showed 372 investigations were started by the IRS based on 27 million reports under the Bank Secrecy Act in the entire country.

Anthony said over a million people live in the ZIP codes covered by the new FinCEN order, and he said the order infringes on the financial privacy for a lot of Americans.

“Folks are benefiting from using these services, whether to send money to family, friends or what have you. And it's perfectly innocent activity,” he said.